Like many of the blog posts, articles and evening training aids on this site, it is from my personal quest for a better swing (currently play to a 7 handicap). I am an analytic so this may be too much thought for you, but maybe you can take bits and pieces of it and apply it to your golf swing.

Through trial and error, as well as a lot of video analysis, and input from some of the top instructors on the internet, I’ve nailed down a few key points you MUST do correctly if you want to fix any swing fault you have, as many of them are a result of a poor takeaway.

I don’t want to regurgitate the same information you may have read or heard before, so I’ll do my best to tell you (and show you) specific issues in the takeaway, what will be the result, and how to fix them.

I’ll use myself as the guinea pig as to what I was doing wrong, what the result was, and how I fixed it. Hopefully you will find something in this and be able to improve your golf swing.

Pay Attention To What Your Hands Do

If you look at this picture, one of many fatal flaws I had is a rolling away of my hands right from the start of the takeaway. This is death to your golf swing.

Here’s what happens when you do that:

• Hands get further away from body creating disconnection.
• The club gets off-plane almost immediately requiring a compensation in the downswing to get it back on plane.
• Incorrect cocking of the wrists, setting the club again off-plane.
• Left shoulder moves out towards the ball, putting your weight too much on the balls of your feet.

Here’s what your hands are supposed to do in your takeaway.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this page.

Notice in the picture how they are staying closer to my legs the first few feet of the takeaway? Also, pay particular attention to my “quiet hands”. There is no independent manipulation of them. They go straight back.

Also, see how I am now cocking the wrists so the club goes more up the correct plane, and not flat and too the inside like before. What I used to minimize my premature wrist cock with the golf wrist Lag aid. When you put this device on, you can’t cock your wrists early.

Golf Takeaway Shoulder Turn

Here’s where I really struggled, as I had many instructors tell me so many different things (thoughts and feelings).

What I came up to was this…

What Your Right Shoulder Should Do

If you’re a right-handed golfer, the very second you start your takeaway, your right should goes “behind you”.

Yes…you must get this right. I have struggled with this my entire golfing life. As my right shoulder move laterally to the right, which also means your head is not moving off the ball.

When you get this motion correct, you will be making an effortless, bigger turn in your backswing, which will give you more core torque, and ultimately power coming down and into the ball.

Your Left Shoulder

Okay…here again is where I struggled. I was always told the left shoulder “stretches across” during the backswing. Well, when you focus on that, it creates a massive amount of tension in the back of your left shoulder, and this tension limits, doesn’t increase your ability to make a full turn.

The feeling I now have is that the left shoulder “reacts” to the turning back of the right shoulder. When you get this right, you will feel minimal tension in the back of your left shoulder.

What Your Arms Should Do

Yet again, I struggled with this for years, and still to this day, work on it nearly every time I go to the range. During the takeaway, your arms should remain almost passive.

The first 2 feet for sure, you maintain the triangle between your hands, arms and shoulders. Nothing gets manipulated. Nothing changes independently.

This is where I use the Connected Golf Swing Trainer. Notice in the picture how this training aid allows me to keep the triangle perfectly. I try to use this at least once a week to ingrain the proper feel of the triangle going back.

My big mistake was bending my right elbow too soon. Almost right away, and what that does is eliminates any chance of getting coil in your backswing. Especially in your lead, or left lat muscle if you’re a right-handed golfer.

It also creates a very narrow backswing, and encourages more independent arm action coming down. Another added “timing element” to your swing that you don’t need.

If you enjoyed this article, and found it helpful, please hit the like button, tweet it or Google+ at the top under my picture. We really appreciate it!

This picture shows a very important checkpoint in your downswing, where the butt of your golf club should point at the target line, or even slightly above it, but never too much to the inside as that is considered a steep downswing (I’m guilty).

Swing Plane Set At Address

At address, depending on the club you’re using, creates a specific shaft angle. From a down the line view, if you drew a line from the bottom of your club where the head is, up the shaft and through your body, that is your shaft plane line.

Golf Swing Takeaway Tip

When you take the club away, it should be with your shoulders, not an independent hand or wrist movement (like I use to do). If you take the club away independent of your shoulders and upper body, you will quickly get the shaft off plane, and the club disconnected from your body.

A common fault is to have the club get further away from you in the early part of the takeaway. If you do this, you will then have to make a drastic drop to the inside coming down, which is an “added move” you shouldn’t have to do, if you were on plane going back.

So your takeaway tip is to take the club back 12-24 inches with no wrist cock, and the upper body doing all the movement. No hands, wrists or even elbow bending at this point.

A good checkpoint is to stop at about 2 feet back in takeaway, and look down at your clubhead. It should still be pointed at an extended target line directly behind the ball.

Backswing Continued

Another checkpoint is when the clubshaft is parallel to the ground. Your club shaft should be parallel with your target line. The toe of the club should be nearly pointing to the sky.

At this point, you’ve basically continued rotating your upper body, arms, hands and club back in “one-piece”. With no independent hand, wrist or elbow action, and your upper arms staying close to your body, with no separation.

Halfway Back In Your Backswing

This may be the most important checkpoint in your backswing to make sure you are on plane. I do this drill in a mirror almost daily.

When your left arm is parallel to the ground, you should have completed your wrist cock, with a slight bend of the right elbow, as you’ve continued rotating back. If you’ve done this correctly, the butt of your club will point at an extension of your target line, about 3 to 4 feet behind your golf ball.

Make this halfway back swing, stop and check if you are on plane. Do it 10 times without stopping, with the last 2 having your eyes closed to be able to “feel” what it’s like to be on plane at this point in your backswing.

Top Of Your Backswing

If you got to the position mentioned above, then all you need to do is finish your shoulder rotation and you’re in a perfect top of the backswing position that is on plane, and ready to come down into impact with a lot of force and compression.

In a future article, we’ll talk about how to stay on plane in your downswing.

Golf Swing Plane Trainer

Here’s A Fast Way To Get Your Backswing On Plane

As you may have read in a previous article, I’m a big believer in the use of golf swing trainers, and the one I have used with much success is the Golf Swing Plane Trainer.

Click on the image to your left if you want to get an on plane golf swing fast!

A common swing fault (I’ve been guilty) is to move your arms independent of your upper body early in the swing and post impact. This creates a very loose, powerless golf swing, that cannot get back to impact in a consistent position

By learning to keep you left arm in close to your upper chest, it makes it much easier to hit the ball, because all you have to do is rotate your upper body through the ball, and the left arm goes along for the ride. Unfortunately, most golfers struggle to get this down, and resort back to their disconnected swings that create mishits and poor distance.

You may have seen golf drills like the one where you take a clubhead cover from one of your woods and tuck in underneath your left armpit, and you make a swing trying to keep it in there, but I found this drill not too effective, as it was uncomfortable to have that under my armpit.

Use A Golf Swing Aid

I am a big believer in the use of golf swing aids, especially ones that are specific to your swing fault. When you can use one of these aids, and make full swings (and even hit balls), you get INSTANT feedback as to if you are doing it correctly or not. This dramatically speeds up your learning to nearly instant, but as we all no, you need repetitions doing it right to ingrain it into your brain and golf muscles.

Recommended Golf Training Aid

I hope you’ve enjoyed this concise article, and now see how critical it is to keep your left arm connected to your chest. If you want to speed up your results, take a look at our connected golf swing aid.

Here’s 7 Simple Steps To A Better Golf Swing

• Grip
• Posture
• Ball Position
• Takeaway
• Top Of Backswing
• Downswing
• Impact

Grip

Your golf grip is your ONLY connection to your club. If you do not hold the club properly, you will not come into impact with a square clubface.

The focus of your winter (off season) golf program should be technique, golf swing strength and flexibility. That combination will dramatically improve your driving distance and even consistency. From now on I want you to think of the golf season as your time to prepare your body for the “next season”, not just a time to put the golf clubs away and forget about golf.

Like all other athletes in EVERY other sport, they all train in the off-season, so why wouldn’t a golfer do the same? It’s common sense to get better, you’ve got to put some “off the course” time in to see the results on the course. Doesn’t that makes sense?

Here’s where a shameless plug comes in

I know you’re time is limited with family obligations, and the holidays, but what if I told you, you could do a simple, easy and fun golf training program “in your home” with just a couple of pieces of very inexpensive exercise equipment in just a couple of minutes a day? Would you be interested? I think you would!

Click on the BIG image below to find out about my INSTANTLY downloadable golf training ebook that has simple golf exercises, easy golf stretches and programs you can do in the comfort of your own home.

I was really trying too hard with my arms, creating not only tension which slows clubhead speed, but making my upper body more dominant during the initial part of the downswing. This caused a whole host of issues with my swing, that resulted in the above mentioned toe shots, a lack of hip rotation and clearing through impact, a raising up out of my spine angle at impact, and a slight flip of the hands causing an early release through the ball.

With all that being said, I am now initiating my downswing with an emphasis on lower body weight shift/rotation and more importantly PASSIVE arms. I feel like my arms are now along for the ride, as opposed to them dominating my golf swing. This will take me some time to ingrain, but with my commitment to practice, I know I will get this, and have already seen some positive results on the practice range.

So when you are making your golf swing transition, and you want the proper sequence coming down, think passive arms, and a lower body shift/rotation. I think it will help you.

This no backswing approach is one that’s been used as a golf drill by golf instruction professionals for years, so it’s kind of comical this is the new craze in golf swing improvement.

It has a lot of merits to consider. The short backswing makes your transition and sequence of motion in the downswing much easier. It enhances solid ball contact which maximizes distance; so what you think you might lose from backswing coil, you gain in ball/clubface contact.

Unfortunately the negative is the golf swing requires a take-away. This no backswing golf swing removes that, so you might have a difficult time carrying over from the drill to can actual swing from address.

This may or may not be an issue, but I think doing the No Backswing Golf Swing is worth a shot. Who knows…you may dramatically improve your golf swing consistency and mechanics.

When I think of lag from the wrists, I think of Sergio Garcia. He has the most impressive, nearly impossible wrist lag (delayed wrist cock) on tour. It’s absolutely amazing to see him with his hands near impact, and his wrists still fully cocked.

One of the LONGEST hitters on the PGA Tour is JB Holmes. He is another perfect example of gaining maximum power through your wrists.

Hinging and unhinging (rehingeing) the wrists is ONE motion. This is where golfers get it wrong!

I took a quick picture(s) to show you the very SIMPLE motion of the proper wrist hinge.

In the picture near the top, I’m hinging. The image below, I’m unhinging. That’s it!

Another common term for wrist hinge is wrist cock. Look how my wrist is bending only ONE way! This is SO important. It doesn’t break side-to-side, only up and down. Combine the turning of the shoulders, dropping of the arms, and this hinge, unhing and rehinge of the wrists at the right time, and you’ve got a TON of POWER!

Recommend Golf Swing Aid

Want to finally learn the proper wrist hinge for better ball striking? Check out the swing aid for improved golf swing power and consistency.

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Below is a list of golf improvement approaches that you can use independently or in combination to learn how to play better golf:

Golf Instruction

The golf swing requires certain movements that are not very natural, so golf swing instruction should be at the top of your list, especially if you’re a beginning golfer. Learning the fundamentals of golf is something every golfer needs and struggles with even as you improve.

Golf instruction can be through private one-on-one golf lessons. Group lessons (which are less expensive). Online instruction is becoming more and more popular. Golf instruction books. And golf instruction DVDs is another great alternative, that is much less costlier than private lessons.

Golf-Specific Fitness

I’m making this number 2 on the list, but easily could be a tie with number one, as many golfers, especially senior golfers have physical limitations that will not enable them to apply what they learn in their golf lessons, making improvement nearly impossible.

I am a firm believer that you are only capable of what your body can do in golf. In simpler terms, your body is keeping you from a better game. How many times have you told yourself you need a bigger backswing? Come on…be honest! What you are indirectly telling yourself, is your body can’t make a bigger backswing, and I’m telling you the ONLY way to improve it is with golf-specific stretching exercises specific to your backswing.

If you’re looking for longer drives, you need to improve your core strength and flexibility. This is the engine to your golf swing. When I talk about fitness, I’m not talking about going to a gym, and spending 2 grueling hours a day. I’m talking about doing, easy, fun and effective exercises right in your home with minimal equipment.

All you need is an exercise ball, exercise tubing (w/handles) and hand weights. That’s your entire golf fitness “in-home” gym. For under $50 you can have your own golf fitness gym, and start seeing results quickly.

If you need guidance on your golf fitness program, take a look at my Effortless Golf Swing Training System.

Golf Swing Training Aids

Another great option that can be very effective for specific swing faults is a golf swing training aid. There is a lot of garbage out there, and a few good pieces. The goal of any training aid is to ultimately make your swing better, but more specifically to help you correct YOUR personal swing fault.

This swing fault may be any number of them, such as a slice, top, thin, chunk, hook, pop up or any other ugly mishit that we all hate. There is only ONE training aid I think so highly of that I offer it on my site. The hinged golf club is an absolute gem of a training aid.

This club gives you INSTANT feedback as to the mistake you’re making in your golf swing. Whether it be a jerky takeaway, or an off plane swing, the hinge will break to show you it’s incorrect. Whether your tempo is off, or your swing plane, this training aid will get you corrected making a near perfect golf swing in no time!

I’ll be back later today, to finish this post, so stay tuned!

My personal golf instructor has agreed to provide some valuable golf swing tips right from his Golf Swing System that I’ve personally used to add 15 yards on my drives, and lower my score by 5 strokes, and I was a single digit already.

There are so many components to a good swing, that many golfers get overwhelmed and frustrated, never to improve. This golf swing system I’m talking about is simple, effective, easy-to-implement, and better yet…I’ve used it personally with awesome results.

I spent the past 10 years looking for a golf professional who could help me with my game. Thousands of dollars later, I finally found MY PRO! Not only has Bobby helped my golf swing immensely, he REALLY cares about me. I have NEVER met a golf instructor with SO much passion and care.